Michael Stuhlbarg as "Hamlet," with Lauren Ambrose as Ophelia, in a production directed by Oskar Eustis at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.Credit
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

There is one breathtakingly poignant moment in the flat-footed “Hamlet” that opened Tuesday night at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. It’s the sad spectacle of seeing a human mind genuinely o’erthrown, of someone losing his hold on reality so completely that you gasp in pity and terror and think, “That could be me someday.”

And no, I’m not referring to the title character, that guy who so famously flirts with madness. As played by Michael Stuhlbarg in this Public Theater production directed by Oskar Eustis, the Prince of Denmark is flamboyant, loud, hyperkinetic, unavoidably watchable and on occasion quite entertaining, but never for an instant moving.

The character I’m talking about is Polonius. Yes, Polonius, that fatuous, meddlesome old fool everybody makes fun of. He’s still all that in Sam Waterston’s fine portrayal of him here. But there’s an early scene where, standing at a lectern (for no reasons other than symbolic, as far as I can tell), Polonius is bloviating as usual when the words dry up and his eyes go glassy.

The long silence that follows, among the other characters on the stage and within the audience, is deeply uncomfortable. What they’ve just experienced is a dire example of what is euphemistically called “a senior moment.”

When Polonius recovers — spurting out, “What was I about to say?” — you feel an embarrassed but tender compassion that lasts until his untimely death in Act III. His eagerness to counsel, to take charge, to be perceived as wise and eloquent now assumes the desperate aspect of a man who knows he’s long past his prime and could be pink-slipped at any moment.

From then on, I found myself focusing disproportionately on Polonius and his children, Ophelia (the wonderful Lauren Ambrose) and Laertes (David Harbour), who seemed both exasperated by and protective of their father. There’s a real family dynamic at work among these characters.

Photo

Michael Stuhlbarg, left, and Sam Waterston in the Public Theaters production of Hamlet."Credit
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

You feel that the blustery Laertes would grow up (were he allowed to) to be much like his pompous dad, while the sensitive Ophelia has been far too sheltered to deal with what the world has in store for her. And what must Mrs. Polonius have been like?

Oh, well. The play, after all, is called “Hamlet” for a reason, so let us move on to other things. (Do I have to?) As staged by Mr. Eustis, the Public’s artistic director, this is a straightforward and easy-to-follow modern-dress interpretation, free (until the obnoxiously politicized final scene) of most of the obtrusive postmodern accessories that have tended to clutter Shakespeare in the Park productions in recent years.

The show’s leading man, it must be said, is not a bore. Mr. Stuhlbarg is a bravely idiosyncratic actor whose extravagantly mannered Richard II for the Public in 1994 was much talked about. And he brings a showy energy to the prince’s vacillations, turning introversion into an extroverted activity that certainly commands the attention.

He’s a grandstander from the beginning, spitting out and even screaming his lines while annotating metaphors with flowery, literal-minded gestures. (When Hamlet gives his advice to the traveling players about not sawing the air with their hands or tearing passions to tatters, you want to say, “Actor, direct thyself!”)

His transition from mere sullenness to feigned madness is signaled by a change in coiffure, from plastered-down nerd hair to unruly locks. But basically he’s always the same capering overgrown infant, squawking for attention, until in Act III he’s sent off to England, from whence he returns with restlessness in check, as if the Brits had diagnosed his problem and wisely prescribed Ritalin.

Mr. Stuhlbarg is good at evoking Hamlet the student prince, who just wants to get back to intellectual game-playing at the university. He never seems more genuine than in the warmth and sorrow of his relationship with his school pals Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Hoon Lee and Greg McFadden).

There’s little chemistry of any kind between Hamlet and his mother, Gertrude (Margaret Colin), or her new husband, the treacherous Claudius (André Braugher), or his best friend, Horatio (Kevin Carroll), or even his father’s ghost (a most corporeal spirit, as embodied by Jay O. Sanders). This is understandable, since Mr. Braugher and Mr. Carroll give good oratory but little in the way of specific characterization.

Photo

André Braugher as Claudius and Margaret Colin as Gertrude at the Delacorte Theater.Credit
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

The usually first-rate Ms. Colin plays Gertrude as a stylish, frosty cross between two former first ladies, Jackie Kennedy and Nancy Reagan. (Ann Hould-Ward did the uptight, society- defining costumes, which include stiff military duds for the men.)

She appears less grief-stricken than aggrieved that Hamlet has turned out to be so messy and bad-mannered. This is true even when he’s spreading her legs and simulating intercourse with her. (Please, can’t we impose a moratorium on these overblown, moldy Freudian interpretations of the boudoir scene?)

David Korins’s set presents Elsinore as a bona fide ship of state (like a white-walled ocean liner) that opens stirringly onto vistas of the park behind and features an eternal-flame memorial to Hamlet’s father, downstage center, to remind us of the prince’s motivation. Mr. Eustis makes visually arresting use of the set and introduces haunting puppet figures (by the master Basil Twist) for the play within the play.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

His direction disadvantageously puts the emphasis on action over reaction, though. (We see only Hamlet’s back when he’s talking to the ghost, for example, and Claudius’s during the performance of the “mousetrap” play.) This is typical of a production in which we always get the plot but rarely the passion.

That’s excepting the family Polonius. Ms. Ambrose, last year’s celestial Juliet at the Delacorte, confirms her gift as a natural and affecting interpreter of Shakespeare. And Mr. Waterston, who is today best known as the uber-prosecutor Jack McCoy on “Law & Order,” invests Polonius with real pathos as well as humor.

His presence here takes on an extra, enriching dimension if you know that Mr. Waterston played Hamlet for the Public in 1975. The actorly enjoyment as well as intelligence he brings to Polonius three decades later is a heartening reminder that, senior moments aside, getting older doesn’t have to be a drag.